


When The Moon Found Her Sun

by blanchards



Series: Trick or Treat (but mostly treat) [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bisexual Suki (Avatar), F/F, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Halloween, Implied Aang/Katara (Avatar), Implied Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Modern AU, Mutual Pining, Past Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Pining, Sapphic, So many commas, Useless Lesbians, Yue (Avatar) is alive, and they were ROOMMATES, obviously, so many
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27275839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanchards/pseuds/blanchards
Summary: Of three things, Suki was sure.1.	They couldn’t throw a Halloween party (and invite Sokka) without enough snacks to feed a small army.2.	You should always buy more decorations than you think you’re going to need, especially if they’re on sale.3.	She was in love with her best friend.Yue and Suki go shopping for Halloween costumes and attempt to throw a party. Things do not go as planned. Sapphic pining ensues.
Relationships: Sokka & Suki (Avatar), Suki/Yue (Avatar)
Series: Trick or Treat (but mostly treat) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994242
Comments: 16
Kudos: 49





	When The Moon Found Her Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is part of my "Trick or Treat (but mostly treat)" series, you can view the other two for Halloween themed stories based around Sokka/Zuko and Mai/Ty Lee. This one's a little bit longer than the others because Yueki lives rent-free in my head and I had a lot to say about what could have been. Rated T for swearing (SFW). Enjoy!

Halloween, for most people, starts the morning of the 31st of October. This is widely regarded as a universal truth. For Suki and Yue, it started the Tuesday before.

Yue could absolutely imagine worse things to be doing with her time than stood in a small, slightly dusty shop with her roommate and best friend. She could also imagine better things, but that’s beside the point. She sneezed.

She understood why they’d come here, all the way out of town, just to search for Halloween costumes. For as long as she’d known her, Suki was unmovable on a series of topics – buying things sustainably was one of them. And it made sense! Why contribute to fast fashion pollution for an outfit you’ll only wear once a year? Knowing the two of them, having lived together for going on their second year now, Yue knew that they, in particular, may get _slightly_ more wear out of said costumes – but it still seemed a waste to buy something that was 80% polyester. They could have made their own, she knew Suki always had in the past and she herself wasn’t a stranger to tailoring, but juggling their third year of university and trying to hold down part-time jobs left them with very little time to create an entire outfit from scratch. Not one up to their standards, anyway. Which is why they were stood, at 4 pm on a Tuesday afternoon, in the middle of the smallest costume shop Yue felt she’d ever seen.

What it lacked in sheer square footage, it by far made up for in contents. Thousands of yards of beautiful fabric embellished and dazzling. Every corner filled with half bodied mannequins wearing the most glamorous, eye-catching inventions – Yue wasn’t sure she could even call them _costumes,_ they looked more like works of art. Upon entering the shop she’d understood immediately why Suki had deemed it vital that they made the rather out of the way journey to come here. But glancing at a price tag as she gently perused through lashings of material, she paled.

Since moving away from her home up North, Yue had been determined to stand on her own two feet. Growing up as what others saw as “a sickly child” and “from a beneficial background” not her words, believe her, had always left her itching to fight for herself. To do her own hard work, earn her own money, make her own way. Looking up from the small paper tag, she spared a glance at the other young woman in the shop, a picture of absolute glee framed by cascading dresses, she knew she shared her sentiment.

When she’d met Suki in her women’s studies class during her first year, she’d met a bright, bold, intelligent woman who was one _hell_ of a fighter. Literally and figuratively: it was after weeks of political discussions that she’d been invited to watch one of her new friends’ martial arts practices, and it was after _that_ that Yue had decided she needed Suki in her life absolutely indefinitely from now on – probably forever. She’d also realised her to be possibly the most enthralling, beautiful woman on earth and, okay, maybe she’d fallen a tiny bit in love at the same time, but that was by the by. Homosexuality was largely still seen as taboo in her home, coming from a place where even women’s liberation was on thin ice – the idea of women liberating _each other…_ it seemed that most people didn’t spare time thinking about it. So, she’d tried not to think about it either. And she really had tried. But, as Yue had discovered during their first year as roommates, when you’re living with the absolute epitome of breath-taking (the kind people write poems about- not that Yue would know anything about that, obviously, of course, haha) it becomes pretty hard to ignore it.

Sometimes, however, you have no choice but to snap out of your more than vaguely sapphic daydreams about your best friend – like when they’re barrelling towards you with fabric in their arms stacked up to their chin.

“Okay, I’ve found us a handful of costumes, a lot of them are kinda like… matching? I mean I think they’re _technically_ couple’s costumes” lord have mercy on her, “but heteronormative clichés be dammed right? They’re cute anyway. If you don’t like them, we could find some others, but I _really_ like these, and I think we should at least try them on. Ada said there was a changing room behind you, so we could just-” Yue’s hands reached out entirely on reflex to catch the garment tumbling from her friend’s arms. She met her wide grin with a small smile of her own. She knew how much this meant to her; back home, Halloween wasn’t really a massive deal and, although Suki had always volunteered very little information about her own birthplace side from the community she lived with, Yue got the feeling it wasn’t there, either. But Halloween _lived_ inside Suki. Awakening on the first of October and slowly bubbling to the surface over the duration of the month until it couldn’t be contained anymore – sparking out of her at the seams. Everything from the decorations to the costumes to the festivities, it lit something within her best friend – a glow behind her eyes always appearing just when Yue always assumed they couldn’t get any brighter. If it meant waking up to see her grinning as she was right now, unfaltering and beautiful, Yue was pretty sure she would make Halloween every day of the year.

The costumes _were_ nice, but none of them fit quite right. They were expertly crafted, nobody was denying that, but none of them _suited_ them. In fact, Yue was quite sure even Suki with her unwavering resolve and love of the holiday was about to call it quits after an hour, when she herself spotted something. Up until then, it had been sixty minutes of standing in a changing room (more akin to the size of a cupboard), waiting for Suki to shove fabric into her hands, and trying not to blush when bare limbs grazed against each other in such a small space. And that was okay, honestly, the sight of all the outfits had overwhelmed her at first, but now Yue was staring for the first time that day at something she thought _she_ might like to try. She never questioned Suki’s taste, the costumes brought to her were always beautiful, but this was something else.

It didn’t take long for her friend to catch onto her line of sight after she let out a small gasp.

In the furthest corner of the room, perhaps poetically almost hidden amongst other garments, were two slightly dishevelled mannequins wearing dresses that fit the exact opposite description. On the left: waves of blue, purple and silver fabric, cascading down like a waterfall with embroidered details catching what little light could reach them, reflecting it into tiny diamonds. Folds upon folds of sheer, glittering silks, pooling around the ground. Beside it, a similar vision in golds and yellows and fierce oranges. Bright, burning material, flaring out, licking at it’s surroundings like flames. Striking streaks of molten colour wrapping around the torso, slashes of sunset tied together with a bounty of golden thread. On top of the mannequins’ respective heads were two headdresses, intricately built with the same level of detail and perfectionism as the clothes beneath them. A moon, and a sun.

They’d barely tried them on before Suki was streaking towards the till with the dresses in tow.

As with most handcrafted items, the price tag reflected the level of work and expertise in the piece, and with the pieces in question being some of the most remarkable she’d ever seen, Yue wasn’t exactly surprised to see the numbers scribbled on the paper. She frowned, glancing over to Suki who seemed to have just made the same realisation. They heard a sigh.

Ada, the lady evidently running the shop, and no doubt the genius behind the two garments they were pining over, struck Yue as someone kind but firm. Warm, but she knew her worth. The girls could respect that, they could use the very same descriptors for themselves. And it was this reason that they knew any form of haggling or bartering was firmly off the table – you don’t barter with peoples art.

“I’m sorry girls, I really am, but the price is fixed on those two. I did try to guide you towards the others, but if you’re looking for a deal this isn’t-”

She saw Suki blush; furiously, mortified.

“We weren’t going to haggle with you.” Her friend cut in quickly before the woman could get any other impressions. “We were just- caught up in the moment. Your work is very beautiful. We’re sorry for wasting your time.”

Sometimes, you do things without thinking. Sometimes there’s a force, an emotion, rising deep within you that catches you off guard and acts on your behalf before you even know it’s there. Sometimes you take one look at your best friend, the person who understands you the most in the universe, with a sad smile on their face sharp enough to stab through you, and you take out your family credit card, the one you’ve avoided so much as looking at for three years, and you buy two 900 Yuan dresses.

Sometimes the bright, grateful smile you receive in return, from the most beautiful woman you know, is worth it.

* * *

Of three things, Suki was sure.

  1. They couldn’t throw a Halloween party (and invite Sokka) without enough snacks to feed a small army.
  2. You should always buy more decorations than you think you’re going to need, especially if they’re on sale.
  3. She was in love with her best friend.



It wasn’t a new revelation. She wasn’t even sure she could consider it an _old_ revelation, or a revelation at all. It just - was. And always had been. Suki had known she loved Yue since the first week they’d met.

Being the most vocal political person in the room wasn’t something she hadn’t already been used to before moving to university. Outside of her adopted home, surrounded by several amazing women, there’d always been movements she’d found herself the only advocate for. Of course, she still experienced what some might call a feminist upbringing, certainly a more liberated one than most. But, some small part of her had at least hoped, upon taking a women’s studies class, she’d be more in her own depth. Upon being the only person to talk publicly for the second class in a row, she realised that may have been too much to ask for. She’d been content to accept that, to go forward the way she always had, when the quiet and seemingly reserved (and unfairly pretty, she noted) girl beside her had slipped her a piece of paper.

It had been when Suki was in the middle of some rant about how a woman can be strong and fierce and independent and still be soft and feminine – something she was especially passionate about. She’d hated the idea that, to become powerful, women must disown a piece of themselves they may actually quite enjoy, they were not two-dimensional objects, after all - there were layers to being strong. The paper had just four words on it, written in almost a calligraphic script. Suki had made a silent observation to ask for handwriting tips afterwards, she’d never seen such delicate lettering come so naturally to someone. It read “ _not like other girls_ ”, and with that, a fire had lit beneath her. She’d launched into a second, related rant about the misogynistic subtext of asking girls to choose between being strong _or_ feminine. The class ended before she’d managed to truly outline her points, but the girl beside her had stayed. She stayed and listened and questioned and prodded even after the rest of the class had excused themselves to a lunch break. Suki knew then that letting her go would be the worst decision she could ever make.

Through months of discussions and coffees and (trying to impress at) martial arts practices, she’d formed a bond with Yue unlike one she’d ever felt before. She had female friends: Katara (admittedly, her ex-boyfriend’s younger sister) was one of the best women she knew - they were friends. But Yue was a _friend_. Someone that Suki wasn’t sure using that title for could even do justice. Yue was the kind of woman that you thought about by default. Someone on your mind even when you thought your mind was empty. She was the kind of person that only had to look at you before your head scrambled and your heart raced. If she decided to give you one of her kind, small smiles then you were in trouble, but if she graced you with a huge, monopolising grin, her eyes creasing, her cheeks flushing – you were dead. Suki knew about those kinds of friends, Sokka had been that kind of friend once. She knew friendships like that, if acted on, only ended one of two ways. And since she came from a background of incredible women who loved and did whatever they felt was right, and Yue came from a stuffy background of misogynists and borderline _royalty_ – well Suki had decided a long time ago that ‘acting on it’ was exactly what she wouldn’t do.

So, they were friends, and it was torture, but it was fine. 

It was fine.

Yue swanned in from her room, a picture of grace as always: ribbons of sheer and sparkling fabric sliding over her body, floating around her. Her hair was down, rippling over her shoulders. At the forefront was a streak of glossy white strands stemming from a birthmark she had, curling around her face gently, a soft bed for the eye-catching crescent headpiece glittering atop it. She glanced up self-consciously through her eyelashes, her cheeks blushed slightly beneath her warm complexion and her irises glittered.

It was not fine.

Objectively, Yue was the most beautiful woman to ever exist. This was just a fact. As much fact as the sky was blue or the ocean was deep. She was the kind of person Shakespearean sonnets were written for. And Suki knew one day somebody else would surely think the same thing – to say they didn’t already. But right now, the only person in the room was her; as she stood in her own respective outfit, thanking god that the self-restraint she’d practised in her combat was transferrable enough to stop her from kissing her best friend where she stood.

She forced her mouth to make words instead.

“You… look… wow.”

Yue let out a giggle. Soft and gentle – _polite,_ Suki thought. She’d lived with this girl for almost two years, she’d heard her real laugh: rambunctious and loud, once you broke behind Yue’s carefully orchestrated mask, she was quick, smart and sharp with delicious wit. Her laugh was musical. The chuckle she displayed right at that moment was far more indicative of the shy girl Suki met years ago, before she knew the powerhouse beneath the surface – if she didn’t know any better, she’d almost assume her friend to be flustered. Which of course wasn’t true, only one of them could be described as that right now – and she was doing a pretty shit job of hiding it.

Moving over to their kitchen island, hoping her answers might be found in the candy bowl below her, Suki tried desperately to steady her voice and make small talk. She could do this. As long as she didn’t look at Yue, or think about her, or hear her, or smell her-

“You also look wow.”

The words derailed her thoughts. Involuntarily her eyes stole another look at the woman stood before her, who had also moved to the parallel side of the table. Suki looked back down at herself, she had to admit, she definitely wasn’t doing too badly. Staring in the mirror for longer than she may have in her entire life before leaving her room, she’d noted how the dress glided along her sides, framing her waist, accentuating her hips. How the soft silk material gently fell off her shoulders, how the glow of the fabric looked alongside her soft skin and how her short, fiery red-tinged dark hair flared out around her face. The subtle gold make-up brought out her eyes, and her signature red lipstick looked as at home as ever amongst the warm-toned colours. She did look good. She didn’t think Yue would notice, though.

Or at least, not to the degree where it seemed to be causing her own cheeks to light up something fierce. Suki’s “ _thank you_ ” dried up in her throat as she caught her friend’s usually gentle gaze roam over her, an intensity behind her eyes that she desperately couldn’t pin-point. She watched as it flickered over her face, her hair, her body, before lingering at her mouth. God help her, why was Yue staring at her mouth, and why did it force her aforementioned self-restraint to kick in again, ten-fold. Well, okay, she knew the answer to that last one. She placed her hands onto the counter just in case ground decided to fall out beneath her.

Contrary to what she assumed, the ground did not fall out from underneath Suki, instead, she found their weirdly charged staring competition to be interrupted in a different manner. A knock at the door. Okay, two knocks. Three. Four- correction: a lot of knocking at the door.

“Are you drunk?” Yue’s words snapped Suki out of her trance as she scrambled to join her at the door of their apartment. On the other side of the threshold stood Suki’s ex-boyfriend Sokka and his respective new partner, Zuko. Boys they’d known for years, with faces redder than their own at that moment, laughing louder than they’d ever seen them.

“No-” Sokka started, trying to get his breath. Zuko elbowed him. “Okay,” gasp, “not really,” wink. Yue rolled her eyes. She was clearly about to chastise them before she realised that the boy wasn’t finished. “Aang. Katara. Stuck in elevator. They said they’d race us, so we ran up here. But. Bastards. Cheated. Got in the- in the elevator. But now they’re stuck.” And then the laughter started all over again.

It was no secret that the elevator in their apartment complex had seen better days. But as Suki and Yue followed them back down the hallway themselves to investigate, it was clear neither of them were quite prepared for this eventuality.

Yue checked a text on her phone, “They’re fine, but they’re saying it just stopped, and none of the buttons will work.” She worried her lip; Suki couldn’t fight herself reaching out and gently touching her arm. She felt the blush creep up her own neck as Yue threw a grateful smile towards her. Glancing back at the boys, if Zuko noticed then he wasn’t making it apparent, but the other was not as clueless – or subtle. He raised a playful eyebrow towards her.

“Okay, I’ll call maintenance and wait for them here. Suki, you three go back and enjoy the party, people will be here any second. I’ll text the group chat and tell them not to use the lift.”

Sokka snorted. Zuko elbowed him again. Suki ran a hand through her own hair.

“Look, no.” Sure, she didn’t want to sit out here for god knows how long and potentially miss her own party, but standing in a corridor with her anxious and beautiful friend suddenly seemed like a much better idea than returning to her two-bedroom apartment alone with the two poster children for homosexual romance. She could stomach PDA usually but the idea of seeing two people who faced their fears and had it turn out okay would, in her current state, probably slightly destroy her. She couldn’t have that, she knew it, but she didn’t need it rubbed in her face.

“We’re _both_ the hosts. We’ll _both_ wait. You two go on ahead without us.” A pause. “Sokka don’t eat all my food.”

“No promises.”

She rolled her eyes, but the boys did as they were told. Sokka only stopping to wink back at her before they entered the room. She sighed, looking down at Yue who was still staring at her phone – if only he knew how misguided he was.

* * *

“- and then I told him to get fucked, because there was no way I was getting out of that seat.”

Suki’s face had a distinctive way of coming alive whenever she told a story. It was enough to make Yue want to ask again and again. Even if she’d heard them a million times before.

Right then and there: in a dimly lit hallway, sat down on the rough carpet with their backs to the elevator doors, their extravagant gowns providing almost comedic contrast and swapping stories about the past few years – Yue decided she wanted to live in that moment forever. She wasn’t sure she was entirely conscious when she reached over the space between them to gently rest her hand atop of Sukis on the floor.

Suki frowned, suddenly snapping out of her story. “Are you okay?”

_Oh._

Was she okay? Was it an okay thing to reach over and tenderly touch your best friend’s hand, as if you hadn’t been pining over her for the duration of your relationship? Yue was raised not to swear (it being unladylike, whatever the hell that meant), but right now she only had one thought, and that thought was _Fuck_.

She back peddled almost immediately, snatching her hand away and apologising.

“Sorry- I. I just sympathised, I just thought-” She swore under her breath. “It doesn’t matter anyway, weren’t maintenance supposed to be here by now?”

But her friend’s frown only deepened. “Yeah, something like that.”

Silence. Awful suffocating silence. Yue was almost considering going against all instincts and back to the party and just leaving their friends to their own devices when her fingers found themselves interwoven again.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out. You’ve just been acting kinda weird today. This week, actually. Purchasing these dresses, no- _thank you_ they’re beautiful, but then you keep looking away from me and. Look. Okay, I’m just gonna ask – I’m sorry if this is too forward, are you-”

Yue swore time slowed down. This was it; this was the moment everything good, ended. She supposed she knew it had to eventually, perhaps she’d been too liberal in assuming Suki wouldn’t judge her feelings. But that was insane, those feelings were towards _her,_ understanding or not, of course they’d seem ‘weird’ if she didn’t share them. And it's not like she ever would, someone as bright and loud and warm as Suki wouldn’t want anything romantic to do with her; she was too reserved, too shy, too… in her own head. Which is exactly where she was in the exact moment that Suki finished her sentence.

“Are you dying?”

_What._

“You… you think I’m dying?!” Try as she might Yue couldn’t stop the look of absolute confusion spreading through her face. It was mixed with something that felt awfully like relief. And then she _giggled._ Because it was funny, hilarious actually. The idea that her own gay panic could be so obvious, so disastrous, it gave someone the impression her life was genuinely ending – and not just in her mind. “Suki,” she laughed, “I’m not dying.”

The other girl blushed, a similar mix of alarm and relief on her features as well. She scrambled to defend herself. “Sorry, I just- I know how you were ill as a child and- sorry I know you hate talking about it. But I thought- you were being really nice to me, and you’ve been so gentle and touching my hands and you never buy things with that card so you clearly did it for me and you keep staring at me and you- seemed like you were trying to tell me something.”

 _I am,_ Yue thought, trying not to let the pained expression translate through to the surface. Deep breaths.

“Suki, I bought those dresses because I knew how much it means to you, and I saw how happy it made you – you look amazing. I didn’t mean to be weird. I don’t know.” She winced. For all intents and purposes, Yue had meant to stop talking there. That was the explanation, that was all she needed.

Her mouth respectfully disagreed.

“I- I just like being around you, and looking at you and touching you and I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable-” She was pretty sure, even if she wasn’t fully in control of it, that there was supposed to be an end to that sentence. And she probably would have gotten to it, too, if Suki’s face wasn’t suddenly inches from her own, having closed the space between them whilst she was rambling.

She truly couldn’t help it, she glanced down at the pair of lips in front of her. This wasn’t the first time today, or this week, or this _year,_ that her vision had decided to stay there. Suki’s lips were wonderful: pouted and plush and always painted a deep red. Yue wouldn’t, in her right mind, admit how many times she’d pictured what they might feel like, if they should ever press against her own. How soft and gentle they might be, how smooth and deliberate, or how fierce and wanting. She’d lost a lot of sleep to this hypothesis. Looking at Suki’s mouth was absolutely nothing new to her.

Watching her best friend return the action, was.

“Can,” The voice was incredibly quiet, Yue probably wouldn’t have even caught the words if she hadn’t been studying their place of origin so intently, “Can I kiss you?”

Consent came in the form of a soft, lingering moment. Lips pressed against lips, cautiously at first – and then deliberate. Both leaning forward spreading their weight between them, slotting their features together like the most obvious puzzle pieces in the world. Right, natural, normal. It was almost medicinal; Yue felt every word of warning, every condescending comment about sexuality lift away from her shoulders. By tomorrow, they’d be back, and the work unpacking them would be far from finished, but right now there were no lies and no secrets, just the feeling of two lips craving her own, the heady smell of perfume and a delicate hand cupped against her cheek. Fingers on her skin, making it their home.

At some point, there was a crashing noise. And a soft _oh._ And two figures stood above them, emerging from the doors they’d been leaning against. At some point there was blushing, and an awkward shuffle as Katara lead Aang’s beaming, curious face away from them down the hall, a soft knowing smile on her own. At some point, they would have to return to their own party.

But not right then, not in that second, with a halo of glittering fabric mixed amongst the hair she was stroking, with a grin pressing against her own and the sound of slow, gentle breaths in between kisses.

This moment could last just a little longer.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, leave a comment if you like, and feel free to check out the other two stories in this series if that's your thing. You can find me on tumblr @[tysukis](http://www.tysukis.tumblr.com) Happy Halloween!


End file.
